I don't think there is anything else I can really say about this.
This isn't facebook. This isn't deviantart. This isn't the comments section of the Daily Mail Online. It's not even twitter. Hashtags? Really?
There have been many great features applied here. The white background (seriously, its absence until now has been bizarre), ability to change name (why did it take so long to get that?) and automatically parsing urls (ditto to that one). Everything else I've seen so far? Not really.
Nothing about the layout makes sense. Pinned threads in private groups are gone. I'm told private groups are no longer private. There's no real sorting of things. Replies to individual posts? What was wrong with quoting? Sorting the 'threads' by newest reply first? What is this?
Standard forum layout is standard for a reason. It's a forum, for debate. However inane and pointless and childish the debate may actually turn out to be. Comment-based layout is for feedback and news 'discussion'.
This is not a forum anymore.
Can we at least have the option to remain on the old [i]forum[/i] layout?
ADDED TO, moved to OP for improved clarity.
After some determined attempts to make myself like the new layout I've noticed some other things.
Not only have pinned threads been taken down, they seem to have been wiped entirely.
In Sapphire, we have apparently lost our 'spam thread', our 'forum rules' and a history of the community, which chronicles upwards of four years of various parts of Bungie.net
These haven't just been moved, they're gone.
Forum navigation has gone backwards. You can't meaningfully cycle through. If I recall correctly, Sapphire had upwards of two and a half thousand pages of forum. To cycle through that now would require astronomically more time than before - partly because of the greatly increased page loading times, mostly because of the inability to progress more than one page at a time. Also the fact that, which I am remiss to note, there hasn't been a 'jump to page' or 'find by date' option added.
The changing of urls. Really. I had dozens of individual threads from the forum bookmarked on my browser. None of their urls work anymore, nor do any of the urls for groups. So frankly, every last one of those threads are completely lost. I could go to [url=http://archive.org/web/web.php]Wayback Machine[/url] to go and find them, I guess, but seriously why should I? There's no guarantee that any are even archived. There is no immediately apparent way of accessing the old 'saved threads' function, so even if I'd done that, I wouldn't be able to find them that way either.
It also bizarrely tells us our posts have been liked, yet does not seem to display anywhere how many times it has been liked except for in the notifications feed. Possibly one of maybe three good things that have come out of this update.
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1 ReplyMade it so gay like facebook! I GOT ON THE ORIGINAL B.NET TO ESCAPE FACEBOOK! I still love you bungie, but you -blam!-ed up big time.
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4 RepliesThe white background is evillllaksjdflkasjdf. Sorry, evil makes me twitch. Damn you bungie! *shakes fist* The new layout is just horrible (not to keep complaining, but I hate it). Hashtags? -blam!-ing hashtags? Welcome to twitter 2.0 kiddies.
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2 RepliesNo, it is not.
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Reminds me of this. [quote][b]Posted by[/b] AGDTinManCeci [url=http://halo.bungie.net/images/games/Halo2/Gallery/Renders/smg_front.jpg]n’est pas une SMG[/url][/quote]
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Yeah, I really do not care for this at all over the old forums. Some thing I like, like putting images and YouTube video's right in, and the text looks nice, but, overall, I'm just not feeling this.
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I agree completely, I'm not a huge fan of the new layout either, pretty much for all the reasons you pointed out OP. But I'm not too worried, it is only a beta.
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2 RepliesThis, my friend, is not a forum. This...[b]is Patrick.[/b]
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2 RepliesIt is only the beta man, stop getting so riled up
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I can see why you guys hate the new youtube layout. Everything you know and love is GONE!
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Were are our ranks?
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http://www.bungie.net/en-us/View/community/Groups/Detail?groupId=19291
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I'm not really sure what's going on here ... but I don't think that I like it very much.
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I thought we were done with #tagging after the original Halo 3 file sharing system tag debacle. Now they prioritize the forums? Odd.
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How do I do
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And your name is not Pitcairne.
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1 ReplyWhoever thought this was a good idea should be fired.
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I hope this BETA gets better, Bungie needs better than this.
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Edited by Nick Biden: 1/11/2013 3:51:41 AMIt's just a beta, it will get better, they just want to use this and improve upon it. The thing I hate is the double spacing. Also, didn't something like this happen when Halo 4 came out? Praise the old and hate the new?
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At first I wasn't all too thrilled over the new layout. It seemed confusing and disorganized at first. But, with all new things, you simply need to give it time and have a look around. Stay a while. I'm sure everyone will get used to it.
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2 RepliesBoo hoo #ITSABETA!!!!!!!!!
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2 RepliesI would love a classic option so much. This is the Halo Reach of forums. They took every single one of the idiotic ideas we could throw at them and actually implemented it. It's a sad day for me at least. We will see what happens when this goes into full swing, but for now I am less than pleased. This feels like twitter. I don't like twitter.
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Completely agree. This update is horrible, and what few token features shine through as positive could have simply been implemented into the old layout. I'd rather go back to the old B.net and never have an update to the site again if the alternative is going in this direction.
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http://www.bungie.net/en-us/View/community/Groups/Detail?groupId=19291
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I have a feeling that his will turn into something like Waypoint and Bungie will stop listening to us as much.
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I would not mind going back to the old forum... But this is still better than Waypoint.
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Is this better? http://www.bungie.net/en-US/View/community/Groups/Detail?groupId=19291